Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter Now On Steam Early Access

I just noticed that Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter is now on Steam Early Access. 16-player co-op in VR sounds like it would be a blast. If you want to know what it's going to take to run SSVR:TFE, you might want to check out our recent VR performance evaluation of Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope.

Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter is a frantic arcade action FPS, featuring singleplay and co-op campaign, various multiplayer modes, all presented in glorious VR and with different locomotion movements.

If anyone wants to play the latest installment of the Serious Sam franchise but doesn't have a VR headset yet (like most of us that are waiting for it to mature), there is a way to modify the game to work with mouse and keyboard. Instructions can be found on the community hub on Steam.

Full-on analog stick movement (with actual analog input in the latest [publicbeta] branch!), analog stick turning if you need it as a front-facing Oculus Touch user (you have no idea how much I yearn for extra sensor cams right now), and the Serious Sam gameplay you know and love, just with guns akimbo to the max. And, no, it doesn't make me sick one bit, though maybe that's just because I have my VR legs.

Everyone should go grab it if they've got the dosh, we need more co-op players!

About all I could ask for right now, bigger playerbase aside, is for them to introduce some control remapping options so I can jump with the face buttons instead of the grip triggers. That should be coming in an update soon, hopefully.

Developers are very active with this game. Yesterday update allows rotation with either controller trackpad and variable speed for motion with the other controller. This makes it more enjoyable but I am still not there yet with my VR legs. I start getting uncomfortable around 15min, not nauseated but if I pushed it I am sure I would get there. Being inside of this game is awesome! Once I get the controls down, developers giving the best options possible I can't wait to go through this masterpiece.

Build 285731
JANUARY 2 - ALENL
Build 285731 is released, with the following changes:

- Savegame system should now properly detect old bugged saves and warn against loading them.
- Fixed multiple crash problems related to savegames.
- Fixed VR controller hints staying in the air at the start of the level if loading a save with them on.
- Trackpad locomotion now has analog control - if the thumb is closer to the center, the player moves slower.
- Added support for continuous and discrete rotation in VR.
- Added Trackpad Click To Move to game options menu.
- Smooth vertical movement on stairs etc, when using trackpad locomotion.
- Fixed motion sickness problems caused by cutscene cameras, because they had motion delay.
- Fixed player not moving in VR cutscenes.
- Fixed camera errors in cutscenes causing disorienting views and neverending cutscenes.
- Fixed VR controller lag when going fast (e.g. jumping on bouncepads).
- Besides the Menu, weapon wheel now also features Netricsa, Vote Yes/No, QuickLoad/QuickSave.
- Fixed weapons being unselectable in modes with infinite ammo.
- Fixed HUD scaling errorneously outside of screen if supersampling is used (it was near impossible to see health/armor on supersampling>1).
- If you only had the left weapon equipped you had to use the right controller to fire with it, until you equipped the right weapon. Fixed.
- Improved Performance autodetection, for cases where single-pass VR rendering is used.
- Cvar prj_bRenderVRLaserSight controls whether to render aiming laser ray on weapons in VR mode. (Can be turned off for hard-core players who want ADS shooting.)
- Fixed game not starting for people with bad root certificates installed in Windows.
- Various fixes, optimizations and other improvements in the low-level rendering systems for both DX and Vulkan.

Good to see that build 285731 made its way from the [publicbeta] channel to the release channel! It's a much needed improvement controls-wise, and stable enough that I felt it warranted being the main release version. Maybe it'll help with finding multiplayer games!

There's still some funniness with trying to jump out of a pool of water reliably (you'll know what I mean if you try to dive into the pool with the 100-health box in the first level and get out afterward), not to mention the continued lack of button remapping given what I mentioned earlier about grip triggers to jump feeling weird on Touch, but they'll polish all that out in due time.

I did notice that some of the cutscenes outright broke with the camera changes, though, particularly that one place with the big pool in front at Karnak (which you have to swim through to get inside).

Played this last night for about 30 min, felt relatively good afterwards. Still do not have the controls down as well as I need to. I also will blink or close my eyes for like stairs or small changes in vertical height since that seems to kinda get to me after awhile. Large drops weirdly, like going over a wall due to uncoordinated use of controls (happens often) does not affect me much at all. I agree about the jump and the squeeze button, hard to time it right, I rather map that to one of the controller trackpad buttons which are not being used for anything at this time. I also would rather have one squeeze button to select weapons vice the top button over the trackpad which just messes up my motion controls. So options for remapping controls would be most welcome in this game.

Currently I have my left trackpad for rotation only and the right trackpad for motion which works well. Plus hand tracking so I can look around while I am strafing and not wobble around like a drunk. I also found a cool to cold room helps as well for motion sickness, so I turn down the temperature on the separate room A/C unit.

This one makes me start to feel a little funny after about 20-30m. Not full on sick, but feeling a little tight in the stomach. Onward and Doom 3 BFG Mod are 100% comfortable for me.

It's definitely the movement speed and rapid changes in direction that does it to me.

Glad I bought it, just to test my boundaries a little. But won't be playing it much.

Looking forward to more full locomotion type games though, that are hopefully, more along the lines of Onward and Doom with more natural movement speeds.

Click to expand...

Have not played Doom BFG in VR yet, one I definitely want to try out though. Looks like Doom VR won't be out until 2nd part of this year which kinda sucks.

If CroTeam can get the Serious Sam games down better for VR - that would allow re-launches of each which I would love to play over again but in VR. Very fun games unless you get sick that is. I also believe if you know what motion you are going to have (predict) the motion sickness would almost never will be there. My problem is I expect to move a certain way but move differently then I expected. The Trackpads on the Vive I am having a hard time getting down plus where I am at on the trackpad if my finger leaves them for something else like gun selection. So touching the trackpad I may dart off or turn unexpectantly which in a gun fight can get very frustrating. I can see how something like the Touch analog sticks would work way better for me. So I have to put some time in with getting down the controls in other words real work.